For a variety of situations and reasons, it may be desirable to control people's access to an area of interest. For example, it is not uncommon to include a gate to block entrance to a parking lot or secured facility. In another example, mass transit systems, such as subways, often include some form of entrance control to enforce fare payment to ride the subway. Also, other places, like concert halls, stadiums, etc., still have conventional paper tickets, and people are employed to physically validate each individual ticket.
Controlling access to these areas is often automated. For example, a user has a card key, and a reader is installed at a gated entrance. To gain access to the area, the user inserts his card key into the reader or places it in very close proximity to the reader so the reader can read the card key. The information transmitted from the card key may be an ID and/or other information for the user and is processed through appropriate business rules to determine if the user is authorized to access the area. If the user is determined to be authorized, the gate is opened and the user is allowed access. In some systems, additional or different determinations are made to determine whether a user is granted access to the restricted area. For example, for mass transit systems, a determination is made as to whether the user has paid a fare or has sufficient funds in an account to pay a fare so it may be deducted after the user travels on the mass transit system.
It is a major inconvenience for the user to have to carry an additional card key and physically present the card key to the reader to gain access to the restricted area. To manufacture and disseminate the card keys for the systems is an expense. Furthermore, the security of conventional systems is not optimal. In conventional systems, security codes used to validate the card keys are often stored on readers, and encoded into the card keys. They are highly susceptible to hacking and as a result create a vulnerability of providing unauthorized access to restricted areas.